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<title>remembrance of ourselves by ERNest</title>
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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/27841612">remembrance of ourselves</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/ERNest/pseuds/ERNest'>ERNest</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Put Me In Your Heart For Friend [5]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Hamlet - Shakespeare</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Grief/Mourning, M/M, Past Abuse, Past Neglect, Reminiscing</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-12-02</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-12-02</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-18 08:54:34</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>894</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/27841612</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/ERNest/pseuds/ERNest</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>They get to talking about the past. They don’t need to.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Claudius/Laertes (Hamlet)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Put Me In Your Heart For Friend [5]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1901488</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>4</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>remembrance of ourselves</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>     They get to talking about the past. They don’t need to. It won’t bring Polonius back and it won’t make Laertes’s revenge come any faster. But it’s nice, and sex isn’t the only way to relieve the tension and pressure that’s always building up at the back of his head. Maybe if they both say the right things about what’s come before, they can believe that something will come soon that’s worth waiting for.</p>
<p>     “I almost didn’t care when my parents died. It sounds awful and you can hate me for it if you like, but they never cared very much about me.”</p>
<p>     “Will you ever stop expecting that of me? There are plenty of better reasons and I don’t hate you for any of those, either. Your feelings are your own.”</p>
<p>     “But I don’t—”</p>
<p>     “No, or your lack of feelings too; don’t be obtuse. Not everyone’s going to react the same as me and that’s not a crime.” He remembers who he’s talking to. “Or a sin. Your parents, were they… terrible to you?”</p>
<p>     Claudius shrugs one shoulder without looking at him. That’s his right. “Not as such. I was, shall we say, an unexpected development, so there were no expectations of me, none. Would I have liked more attention paid to me or to occasionally be told I was doing a good job? Sure, what kid doesn’t? But it was fine. We just weren’t anything to each other.”</p>
<p>     “Sounds lonely.” That’s an understatement; it sounds <em>awful</em>. His father could be overbearing at times, could talk past him and hear only what he expected to hear, but at least he took an interest. Laertes was never in any doubt that he <em>cared</em>.</p>
<p>     “I suppose it was, but then I was a loner most of the time. It wasn’t so bad, really — Gertrude always had a smile for me at least.” His whole face transforms whenever he speaks about his wife and Laertes wonders if he’ll ever have a love like that, wonders what it feels like. “But parental attention isn’t always the safest thing in the world so maybe that’s why my brother — because he always got the worst of it, and he was the one with a line of kings to live up to, so wouldn’t it be fair if he evened the scales?</p>
<p>     “Claudius…”</p>
<p>     “No, I know it’s not an excuse, it’s not even a reason. He didn’t need one with such convenient target.”</p>
<p>     “I wish you’d had a better family. Everyone deserves that. But you always want there to be a reason, don’t you, and especially when you’re a kid. When my mom died I started getting into fights with anyone, over any little thing, because there had to be a <em>reason</em> for it, even if the reason was that she left because I was just a bad kid.”</p>
<p>     “Oh, you mean you used violence to cope with grief and had a fixation with holding the world to account?” Laertes just crosses his arms and looks at him. “Sorry. But I do swear to you that you’ll get your revenge. Go on?”</p>
<p>     Laertes believes him, is the thing. It scares him a little how quickly and how deeply he trusts this man. “To tell the truth, it was the queen who saved me from myself. I was spiraling pretty bad, I think, trying to look out for my sister and myself, and our father was too upset to really engage, but Gertrude, she just… sat with me and let me talk about anything on my mind, and told me it was okay to feel however I felt.”</p>
<p>     “She’s good at that,” the king says softly. “She’s an excellent woman and I’ll never truly deserve her. When— how long ago was this? My apologies, I was vaguely aware of a noblewoman dying, but I just wasn’t very active in the court at the time.”</p>
<p>     “Please, you <em>can’t</em> think I blame you for not remembering that sort of thing. I was nine, almost ten. Actually,” he laughs, “Right before Mom died I would tell everyone I met that I was nine and three quarters exactly. The kind of thing that matters immensely at that age and stops mattering at all after you lose something so huge.”</p>
<p>     “I can just imagine him — young Laertes and his passion for precision. I’m sorry he lost that, but I’m glad to see the passion didn’t disappear entirely.” It’s the best thing he could have said for a long-ago hurt like this. Claudius is a better man than he thinks he is, and kinder too. “So that would have been around… <em>oh</em>. Oh, just after…” He trails off into some memory Laertes is not privy to, something that makes him look very tired and very alone. He has no idea what Claudius could be thinking of; how could he when they didn’t know each other back then? But he knows enough to hold out a hand which Claudius grabs as a lifeline. “It’s good that she was there for you,” he finally says. “Good that she was <em>there</em>.”</p>
<p>     “Very good,” Laertes agrees. “She didn’t <em>need</em> to be so kind to me, but she saw a little boy who needed some kindness and I don’t think it ever occurred to her to withhold it.” He squeezes the hand he holds and smiles to feel how Claudius has relaxed.</p>
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